Monday, March 23, 2015

A provocatively entitled Washington Post news article ("Sen. Ted Cruz seeks to upend D.C. laws on contraception
coverage, gay rights") suggests that recently enacted DC "laws would
restrict the ability of private groups to discriminate based on religious
beliefs. In fact, the laws target and
discriminate against religious groups by dictating that they must hire
individuals who directly contradict the groups' tenets, standards and mission.

That's a flagrant violation of First Amendment freedoms, as
upheld by a unanimous Supreme Court in the Hosanna Tabor case and by
Congress in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

What the ironically entitled Human Rights Amendment Act of 2014
actually does is repeal a measure that for decades had advanced tolerance by
ensuring that the DC Human Rights Act could not be used to coerce religiously
affiliated schools into violating convictions of conscience.

The DC Council apparently has decided, however, that there is not
enough room in the District for religious dissenters who question the Council's
edicts on sexual morality. Their discriminatory laws inject unconstitutional
governmental coercion that subverts the democratic process of free speech and
debate that historically has shaped American public opinion and values.

Friday, March 20, 2015

In annual appropriations bills
since 1976, Democrats routinely have united with Republicans in passing the
Hyde Amendment, which simply prevents taxpayer monies from funding abortions
except in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother. Americans
overwhelmingly oppose opening public coffers to the abortion industry.

Nevertheless, Democrats
increasingly have been injecting abortion partisanship into human trafficking
programs. Congressional hearings revealed how Obama administration officials denied a grant to a faith-based organization
over abortion and other morally objectionable issues.

Many would note that abortion
would only add to the trauma that human trafficking victims have already
experienced. Yet even the Hyde Amendment does not disallow government-funded
abortions in cases of rape, nor does it prevent abortions paid for with
nongovernment funds. So protests over the Hyde Amendment in this
trafficking-victims program are little more than partisan politics designed to
enforce a radical abortion ideology.

Jonathan Imbody, Ashburn

The writer is vice president for
government relations for the Christian Medical Association.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

The
following letter expresses the concerns of many in the faith-based community
regarding First Amendment freedoms of religion and speech:

March 17,
2015

Sen. Mike Enzi

Senator
Mike Enzi

﻿﻿﻿Senator
Mike Lee

Dear
Senators Enzi and Lee:

﻿﻿﻿

Sen. Mike Lee

We, the
undersigned, representing hundreds of thousands of Americans, want to thank you
for your leadership in reintroducing two key pieces of legislation designed to
ensure that charities, non-profits, and small business owners with religious
beliefs or moral convictions about marriage are not penalized by the government
for their beliefs.

The
Marriage and Religious Freedom Act would prevent the federal government from
discriminating in programs, grants, contracts, and tax treatment against
individuals who believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. Such
protections are urgently needed in light of new federal agency conditions
requiring endorsement of same-sex relationships in order to compete for certain
federal grants. In addition, the President’s problematic July 2014 Executive
Order jeopardizing the ability of businesses and faith-based organizations that
contract with the federal government to hire and administer programs according
to their religious beliefs is deeply troubling. The government should not deem
longstanding providers of important public services ineligible to compete for
federal funding simply because of their beliefs about marriage. This bill would
stop these harmful and arbitrary government penalties.

Similarly,
S. 667, the Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act, would ensure that faith-based
adoption and foster care providers working with birth moms, parents, and
community stakeholders to serve needy children can continue to provide services
in their respective locales. S.667 would address discriminatory actions like
those taken by Illinois, Massachusetts, D.C. and San Francisco to force
faith-based providers to halt services simply because of their belief that kids
do best with a mom and a dad. Indeed, the Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act
reflects its name—it ensures the inclusion of all providers and particularly
those faith-based entities who have offered the bulk of orphan care since our
nation’s founding. States that choose to discriminate against faith-based organizations
despite this bill’s prohibition would face a reduction in federal funding under
this bill, an important deterrent to future targeting.

We as
individuals and organizations wish to remain active participants in and
contributors to our communities. These bills ensure that we can continue to do
so while also living in accordance with our beliefs about marriage and the
family. Significantly, an overwhelming majority of Americans agree that we
should have this freedom. Just last month, new polling from WPA Opinion
Research and Family Research Council showed that 81% of Americans believe that
individuals like us should be able to live and work in accordance with our
belief in marriage as between a man and a woman.
While
Americans in general continue to debate the meaning of marriage in the lead up
to Supreme Court review of state marriage laws this spring, one thing is clear:
millions of Americans who continue to affirm the historic understanding of
marriage should remain free from government discrimination.

Again, we
thank you for your leadership in introducing and advocating for this important
legislation.

Monday, March 16, 2015

Following is an excerpt from a letter sent by faith-based organizations to US senators recently. The letter urges rejection of gender ideology legislative language in a bill for social services to runaway youth. Sen. Pat Leahy's language would essentially disqualify faith-based organizations from providing social services with funding from the US Dept. of Health and Human Services' Administration for Families and Children.

The letter notes,

"As leaders of faith-based organizations, religious-freedom advocates, and lawyers who work with faith-based organizations, we ask you to reject the misconceived nondiscrimination clause that S. 262, the Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act (Sen. Leahy) would attach to every grant administered by the Administration for Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services. The clause will undermine the rights of faith-based social-service providers or even cause many of them to be excluded from these grants. And yetfaith-based organizations are pioneers of services for runaway, homeless, and trafficked youth, provide a wide range of services also for other vulnerable people and communities, and are respected partners of government in a very large number of programs.... Read the full letter

Tennessee affirms opposite-sex marriage, not bigotry
Re: "Discriminated after crossing state lines," March 6.
Published in The Tennessean, March 13, 2015
In aletter to the editor, a Chicago resident complains that Tennessee does not recognize in law the fact that Illinois considers him married to another man; he labels Tennessee's legal definition of marriage a matter of discrimination and inequality.
The state of Tennessee retains a constitutional right, highlighted in the Supreme Court's recent Windsor decision, which deemed a federal definition of marriage as usurping states' rights, to determine by objective qualifications and definitions who qualifies for a marriage license.
Tennessee also uses objective qualifications to determine which of its citizens can vote, practice medicine, own a gun or teach in public schools.
These qualifications only constitute "discrimination" in the sense of discerning the relevant factors that merit granting legal status and privileges.
Why would Tennesseans legally define marriage as between a man and a woman?
Social science research clearly demonstrates that marriage between a man and a woman in a lifelong, exclusive commitment offers society, and children in particular, unique benefits — economical, educational, psychological — that no other relationship offers as well.
These benefits have led governments for millennia to recognize and endorse in law the marriage of a man and a woman.
A state's recognition of the unique benefits of man-woman marriage does not preclude love, respect, dignity or the extension of a host of government benefits and privileges to non-married citizens.
It's simply an objective affirmation of what marriage is and an endorsement of the unique benefits it provides to society and children.Jonathan ImbodyVP Government Affairs, Christian Medical Association

The Washington Examinerreports
that Senate Democrats are suddenly opposing a heretofore bipartisan bill to
fight human trafficking, after unanimously passing it out of committee, because
it contains a modest anti-abortion measure routinely approved by both parties
in legislation every year for nearly four decades.

The longstanding Hyde
Amendment simply keeps our tax dollars out of the abortion industry--a concept
supported by two-thirds of Americans, according to recent polling. The
Hyde Amendment even includes exceptions for saving the life of the mother and,
despite some pro-life objections, also for rape and incest.

Which leaves Senate Democrats with the lamest of talking
points, such as not realizing that the Hyde Amendment was referenced in the
short, 62-page bill. Did the Senate Democrats not bother to read the
legislation from laziness, did they not understand it out of ignorance or do
they think that Americans suddenly want their tax dollars to pay Planned Parenthood
to end the lives of developing babies?